


African Heads of State

by heyjupiter



Category: X-Men (Comicverse)
Genre: Character of Color, Gen, Rare Women
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-30
Updated: 2012-04-30
Packaged: 2017-11-04 13:49:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/394570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heyjupiter/pseuds/heyjupiter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"African heads o'state are all the same. Put 'em in power and they all go nuts," he says. Does Logan remember her current job title? <em>Put 'em in power and they all go nuts</em>, indeed. As if Logan would rise to the challenge of leading a country whose resources have been routinely pillaged by wealthy foreigners, whose infrastructure is basically nonexistent? The trouble with Logan's version of history is that it leaves out several hundred years of colonial oppression. Logan might argue there's little difference between Europeans oppressing Africans and Africans oppressing Africans, but Ororo knows that isn't true.</p><p>***</p><p>This is something of a remix of Warren Ellis's Astonishing X-Men: Xenogenesis miniseries, though I wrote it with the intent that you don't need to have read the comics to read this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	African Heads of State

**Author's Note:**

  * For [karrenia_rune](https://archiveofourown.org/users/karrenia_rune/gifts).



> This story is kind of a remix of Warren Ellis's [Astonishing X-Men: Xenogenesis](http://www.amazon.com/Astonishing-X-Men-Xenogenesis-Warren-Ellis/dp/0785140336/ref=sr_1_14?ie=UTF8&qid=1335757593&sr=8-14) miniseries. It follows the same basic plot but we see it from Ororo's perspective. I've included some quotes from the comics, so a big hat tip to Warren Ellis is required.
> 
> If you haven't read Xenogenesis, I think that I included enough of the story for it to stand alone without being boring if you _have_ read Xenogenesis. I hope! Anyway, there's also a [quick summary on Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astonishing_X-Men#.22Xenogenesis.22_.28Astonishing_X-Men:_Xenogenesis_1.E2.80.935.29) if you haven't read it and want to catch up. This story also refers to the incidents of [Ghost Box](http://www.amazon.com/Astonishing-X-Men-Vol-Ghost-Box/dp/B005MWKK9C/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1335757593&sr=8-7) (Ororo's recent return to the X-Men) but again, my hope is that it will stand without having read that. However, a key piece of information: a ghost box opens a portal to another dimension, but using one leaves behind weird radiation that has adverse effects on the area where the ghost box is activated. 
> 
> Also, Mbangawi is the fictional Marvelverse African nation where most of this story takes place. Warren Ellis never gives a demonym for the people who live there, so I went with "Mbangawians." He stated that it was loosely based on Tanzania and Uganda, so I gave it the same official languages as those nations (English and Swahili), which were also not specified in the comics.
> 
> ***
> 
> Written for the Rare Women fest for karrenia_rune, who said, "Ororo in whatever capacity or incarnation is just all-kinds of awesome." I really hope this suits you! 
> 
> ***
> 
> Thanks to [pocky_slash](http://archiveofourown.org/users/pocky_slash) for the beta!

Ororo's sitting in her sparsely-decorated room at the new X-headquarters, slicing into an apple with her pocketknife. She'd bought the apples, beautiful Pink Ladies, for $2 a pound at a farmer's market. Apples in East Africa are expensive (not that that matters, to a queen) and flavorless (of greater concern to royalty like herself). But then, a Californian mango might cost $2 for a single fruit, and it would taste nothing like a fresh, ripe mango plucked from the tree in her homeland. With produce, as with everything else in life, there are tradeoffs.

She's only taken a single bite of apple when her videoscreen lights up with a call from T'Challa. Not everyone understands the nature of their frequently-long-distance relationship, but that matters little to Ororo. She's happy to see him when she sees him, and perfectly capable of independent happiness when she doesn't see him.

"I'm afraid this call is an instrument of continental diplomacy, rather than the usual pathetic entreaties of a lonely husband," he says. He probably misses her more than she misses him. She'll have to visit soon.

Around a mouthful of apple, she says, innocently, "You agreed that I should spend some time with the X-Men. In fact, I think it may even have been your idea, T'Challa."

"So you'd like me to believe. Seriously, a situation came to my attention this afternoon that I need your help with."

"Really?"

"Well... As I say, diplomacy. Since I put money into Mutantes Sans Frontieres, and MSF now funds the X-Men...it's really MSF territory, and so it's tricky. But I would want your view of the situation on the ground to be the primary one. And I think it's X-Men business. You know what East Africa can be like about news. The reports I'm getting are three weeks old. Something's happening in Mbangawi..."

She assembles the team, tells them what she knows about the apparent increase in mutant births. It's a bombshell, and Hank asks for details, of course. She echoes T'Challa's claim that "it's not a part of the world where information moves well." But that's not really true, is it? African villagers are as gossipy as American high school girls. But they won't spill their secrets to outsiders any more than a high school girl will willingly divulge information to the school principal. These things just aren't done. But perhaps she can build up some trust and get some recent information about _someone_.

Scott pulls her aside and awkwardly confesses that he'll be out of his depth in Mbangawi. He says, "I'm walking two white Americans, a white Canadian, a Japanese girl, and a white woman of indeterminate ancestry who speaks with a fake English accent into an African country. So I hope you don't **mind** a little more consultation than usual..."

This is all obvious to Ororo. It's nice that Scott recognizes it, at least. Africa is full of well-intentioned white people, almost none of whom have accomplished anything of worth. This mission isn't about whites and Africans; it's about mutants and nonmutants. Still, it would be foolish to think that race has nothing to do with their ability to get things done on the ground, and Ororo is anything but foolish.

On the plane, she listens to Logan giving Hisako an impromptu geography lesson. Does Logan know she can hear him? "African heads o'state are all the same. Put 'em in power and they all go nuts," he says. Does Logan remember her current job title? _Put 'em in power and they all go nuts_ , indeed. As if Logan would rise to the challenge of leading a country whose resources have been routinely pillaged by wealthy foreigners, whose infrastructure is basically nonexistent? The trouble with Logan's version of history is that it leaves out several hundred years of colonial oppression. Logan might argue there's little difference between Europeans oppressing Africans and Africans oppressing Africans, but Ororo knows that isn't true.

Logan goes on to describe Nelson Mandela's guerrilla warfare, to get Hisako to label Mandela a terrorist. He's on his second beer already, yet he's making logical points. Even if they are being delivered with Logan's signature lack of tact. Up in the cockpit, Scott says, "Don't listen to Logan." He's concerned for her feelings, perhaps more concerned than he is for the lives of the Mbangawians on the ground. But that's an uncharitable thought.

"I always listen to Logan. He's wiser than you ever want to admit," she says. Not that this means she agrees with him.

And then Scott surprises her with a gorgeous aerial view of the Serengeti. Home. It's beautiful. She misses her home, but when she is home, she misses the X-Men. She supposes there are worse problems to have.

And then they land the jet and are greeted by soldiers with guns. Has she really missed this? No one would dare treat the Queen of Wakanda in this fashion. But soon enough these men will know not to treat Storm of the X-Men in this fashion either.

Scott says, deadpan, "So. I'm thinking this'd be a good time to consult with you about African things."

As if she can consult their way out of this. She doesn't have time to explain the brutal simplicity of African warlords. This man, Doctor Crocodile—he has the connections, the charisma, the _something_ to make men with guns follow his lead. As long as he keeps people scared enough to stay quiet, but not so scared they have nothing left to lose, he can stay in power. Until the next dictator comes along. Until someone provides another way.

She's still thinking of the conversation she'd had with Cyclops, the one where she'd said she didn't want to kill anyone, and he had asked her what would happen it Wakanda went to war with Zimbabwe. Would those deaths be on her hands? Are these deaths on her hands? Are these impoverished lives on her hands? Even a queen has only two hands, and right now she's using hers to fight off guerrilla soldiers. It's for the greater good, she thinks.

Emma provides a local language download to the MSF aid workers and the X-Men. Ororo can't deny the language downloads were handy in Indonesia, but it's still a strange sensation. She wonders just what the MSF workers were doing before Emma's arrival. The official languages of Mbangawi are English and Swahili, but here in this village most everyone seems to speak only a local dialect. MSF must have had a translator, but still... it seems unproductive, though not surprising. Africa is a polylingual continent with too many languages to keep track of, and it isn't reasonable to expect aid workers to know them all. Yet how much aid can they really hope to provide if they cannot even communicate with the people they hope to serve?

Of course, communication goes beyond language. Do these people even know who to talk to to get information, if they could? You must start by talking to the elders, to show respect, but if you want any useful knowledge you must talk to the women. The women gather in courtyards, at the water pump, at the market, and they share information. And the women, of course, will be the ones who have given birth to the mutant babies. But Ororo would bet her bright yellow X-hat that MSF has been speaking to the men through a lazy translator and claiming to be unable to get information. Ororo can change that.

She talks to a cluster of women, mothers. They don't recognize her as Queen of Wakanda, but they do recognize her as someone who can and will listen to them. They tell her about the mutant babies, about their fear, about the strange man in the forest. They cry, and they accept Ororo's embraces. They accept her promise that help has arrived.

"These people have been scared too long, Scott. This has been happening for months, and they've received no support at all from their government. They have next to no contact with the outside world. They have no coping mechanism at all."

"I don't want to sound, you know... but did you get anything useful from them?"

"Scott, this isn't just another mission. This is these people's babies," Ororo says, carefully keeping her tone even. Diplomatic. It is hard for any woman to talk about saving babies without being perceived as overemotional, and then Ororo has the weather to consider. It would be embarrassing if her outrage manifested as a downpour, and she tries to keep herself in check.

"I get that. I really do, Ororo," Scott says, but she doesn't believe him. She knows how easy it is for white men to write off black babies, to think, well, they probably would have died of starvation or AIDS or malaria _anyway_. She hates that she is still thinking of Scott, her old friend, her leader, so uncharitably, but she still doesn't think she is thinking wrongly. 

"They explain this to themselves by saying that a devil lives outside the village." If Scott, if _anyone_ laughs, she will strike them with lightning. Just a little bit of lightning. X-Men don't kill.

But, to his credit, Scott doesn't laugh.

And nobody laughs when Doctor Crocodile and his men turn up at the makeshift hospital, holding guns to the heads of the field doctors and calmly explaining that the babies aren't mutants, they're "warpies," and they need to be killed.

Ororo listens with a sick feeling in her stomach as he describes his work with the British government, with "xenogenetic" births. Children whose development had been altered by ghost boxes. Children who might explode. He talks of his duty to protect his people from these genetically unstable, unnatural children. He says, "Perhaps Queen Ororo of Wakanda has been taught a little about duty. One hopes her and the king don't just sit around counting their vibranium money all day."

Her lips tighten, but she says nothing. It is true, after all, that she has chosen to re-join the X-Men rather than dedicate herself to ruling full time. And it is true that Wakanda has advantages other African nations lack. Who's to say what duty she would feel, were she the leader of Mbangawi?

Logan says, brusquely, "African leaders."

Doctor Crocodile laughs and says, "And what would you know of African leaders? I have read all the tribal records of M'Bangwi, Mr. Logan. I know all about your educational trips to Africa. I imagine it's easy to disrespect African leaders when you're complicit in CIA strikes against three of them. Does it make it easier to romanticize your mercenary past by deciding that everyone is as corrupt as you? … Kill or jail us, take these babies to your shining land across the sea and curse us backwards tribesmen. Perhaps I'll lodge a complaint with the United Nations, just for fun. We all know how closely African nations are listened to."

Ororo hates how much she agrees with this man.

But she agrees with Hank, too, when he explains what he knows of ghost boxes, of parallel dimensions, of just what they might be dealing with.

She agrees with Scott when he decides the X-Men should work with Doctor Crocodile for now.

She agrees with Logan when he says, "Guy's an asshole," and she agrees with Scott when he says, "So are you."

And so she, Wolverine, Beast, and two Mbangawian soldiers join forces to track the "devil," to see what he might know. When they find him, she says, in her calmest, most queenly voice, "It's all right. We're here to help you," and she hopes she's telling the truth.

The boy says his name is Jim Jaspers, and she listens as Beast puts two and two together. The Jaspers Warp. Warpies. Exploding babies.

And then Jaspers says, "Oh no! Furies!" The ghost box lights up, and alien soldiers appear from another dimension. She cannot believe she actually missed being an X-Woman.

Ororo makes a snap decision, scooping Jaspers into her arms and taking flight. She calls down, "I'm taking him out of here. You deal with that. Try diplomacy first, please, but the issue is containing them here."

Back in the village, Doctor Crocodile says, "This is **my** country." Scott says, "And those are my X-Men." But there may be even more than that at stake, Ororo thinks--it's their planet. Their dimension. Goddess only knows what could go wrong if they can't contain the warp.

Back in the midst of combat, fighting these Furies--Emma, after some snooping in Jaspers's head, has telepathically announced that they are " _a surgical strike force designed entirely to kill superhumans_." But of course. And then she says that Jaspers is " _a reality-jumper. A living ghost box._ " He's the one who caused the warp, who gave off the radiation that mutated those babies.

She says, "We need to keep them right here, Scott. We're all that's between them and the villagers. And the villagers are between us and the boy they're hunting."

Scott knows this, but she wants it to have been verbalized.

Emma says, "I'm about to be a proper little X-Man and do something quite remarkably stupid."

Doctor Crocodile mutters, "All white people are insane." It's a reductive statement, but Ororo can relate.

Hisako says, "What is she doing?"

Ororo and Scott get it at the same time, or at least, enough of it. Scott says, "Oh no."

Ororo says, "Getting herself killed. And yet, putting herself between it and a lot of people she has never met. So perhaps we can ask for two miracles in a row and hope she survives whatever she's scheming." Ororo and Emma have never been the best of friends, but Emma's doing what she perceives to be her duty. Ororo values that a great deal.

After it's all over, after Emma collapses from psychic exhaustion, after the last Fury vanishes back through its portal, after Logan has gotten a warm beer from somewhere, Doctor Crocodile--President N'Dingi--approaches her and says, "...I have to say, meeting you is a peculiar honor."

"How so?" she asks, polite, but curious.

"It's strange. I mean, technically we're both heads of state and I should be interested to meet you on that basis alone. But I heard the stories of the wind goddess of the Serengeti, just like everyone else in the countries surrounding Lake Victoria. It's not every day one speaks to a mythical figure whose very name makes children smile. It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Wind-Rider."

"... oh. Thank you," she says, accepting his hand.

Then, after everything's cleaned up, she's surprised to watch Doctor Crocodile shoot Jaspers in the head. It shouldn't have been a surprise, but she thought they'd understood each other.

He says, "It is my burden to weigh and rule justice."

"How is murdering a child in his sleep justice?" Ororo asks, too sad to even be indignant.

"It is not. Neither is allowing a human dirty bomb to wander around undefused in the midst of my people. I will attempt to contain warpies, given your promised aid. But I will not permit an adolescent to hold the health of my people at his mercy. And now I have to arrange for villagers to be taken to the city, not knowing if they'll ever be allowed to come home. And no one will care. It's not Chernobyl. It's not an oil spill, or a hurricane. It's just a village in Africa. Everyone wants to save the world, you see. But nobody really cares about M'Bangwi. No one but me. Goodbye, Wind-Rider."

He walks out, leaving her, Scott, and Jaspers's still warm corpse.

Ororo thinks on Doctor Crocodile's words and wonders what she would have done, had Jaspers wreaked havoc upon Wakandan babies. She likes to think she would have found a better way--gotten Hank to study Jaspers, to see if he could be neutralized. But she has connections and resources that aren't available to every head of state. If it comes down to one boy versus dozens of babies, the math really is not so hard.

Logan had said, "African heads o'state are all the same. Put 'em in power and they all go nuts." But Ororo knows better. It is the world that is "nuts." Doctor Crocodile had truly done what he thought needed to be done for Mbangawi.

Ororo pulls herself together, says, "We can give him a proper burial before we leave, at least." She finds a packing crate to use serve as makeshift coffin for the boy with the unfortunately deadly ability.

She is the Queen of Wakanda, the Wind-Rider, and she will do what needs to be done for Jim Jaspers. For Wakanda. For Africa. For mutants. For planet Earth. Starting with this funeral, and continuing with whatever the goddess handed to the X-Men next.

**Author's Note:**

> I just want to say that there are some quotes in here with weird grammar, but they are lifted from the comic so I didn't want to change them. So if you noticed they were weird: yeah, me too. Also, in the comic, Doctor Crocodile calls it "M'Bangwi" and everyone else calls it "Mbangawi." *shrug*


End file.
